Life in general, fiber arts in particular, near Twisp in the beautiful Methow Valley

Wet but still White

Greetings from the soggy Methow Valley. We have had a steady supply of precipitation – if only it would stay about 5 degrees colder… then it would stay as snow. At least we got a nice 3-4″ over Saturday night, and some of it is still on the ground, but the roads are once again completely clear. Last week we twice went on a 2-1/2 mile round trip walk up our road, to the end of pavement, which most winters is a treacherously icy affair, best not attempted.

I hear most of the groomed ski trails in the valley are still in decent shape, though. There was a big national level Nordic ski race here last weekend, the SuperTour, and they had to change the venue in part from the track near Liberty Bell High School to the north summit of Loup Loup (which has a groomed ski trail system of its own). By all accounts the conditions were good and it went off well.

Not at the championship level ourselves, we were content to ski some of the trails up at Loup Loup South Summit last Sunday. It was a little slow but not sticky and we were out for at least 2 hours. Towards the end we had a light snow mixed with rain, so we got pretty wet, but it was great to be out there and doing it!

Yesterday I went with my Tuesday group for a snowshoe outing. We drove up the Twisp River Road and tried the Buttermilk Sno-Park (not tracked and too icy), another spot at the end of plowing up the south side of the Twisp River (neighbors known to be unfriendly to parking there, were home, and some of our group were nervous…), and finally the end of plowing up the main Twisp River Road. There we had luck and saw only that some skiers had been in before us. We had to “break trail” but the surface was firm so it wasn’t too much work.

This was the turn-around spot for some, the beaver ponds and a rather grey outlook:

Twisp River beaver ponds

Four of us continued on to War Creek Campground for a lunch break and turn-around spot. We figured we did 5 miles round trip, and I was a little tired! But had a lovely hot soak in the tub on returning home.

On the fiber arts front, I finished my third Jared Flood hat from his “Made in Brooklyn” booklet. I used my handspun grey Corriedale plus a strand of grey Rowan Kidsilk Haze. It is wonderfully soft and springy!

I also finished up spinning some dyed wool roving that I bought from Heidi Parra at The Artful Ewe in Port Gamble about 2 years ago. The roving was dyed mainly green with some areas of brown-into-black, so the color varies subtly along the length of the spun singles. I wanted to ply it with something else so I could get more yardage, so rummaged around in the spinning fiber boxes and came up some baby camel/merino (50/50 blend). So here is the final yarn, it is a 2-ply and about fingering weight. I have 220 gm total or about 1/2 lb of yarn, approx 850 yds and I think it will be knit into a lace shawl.